Windows Phone 8.1 set to arrive on 14 April

We thought we still had a bit of a wait on our hands for the revamped version of Windows Phone, but it seems that according to the mobile grapevine, Windows Phone 8.1 will be out on 14 April – a week on Monday.

Well, we should qualify that statement, actually, as that won't be the general release of Windows Phone 8.1, but rather the developer preview. That's still a full version of the OS, mind, but one that only developers can pick up – not that there's anything stopping anyone signing up as a dev, if they can be bothered.

The 14 April date comes from a Microsoft engineering email Neowin spotted, which mentioned it as a target – and The Verge confirmed this date, but noted that it could slip slightly.

At any rate, this indicates that the dev preview will arrive very soon, and the full consumer release of Windows Phone 8.1 won't be far behind (do note that in the UK, we won't get Cortana until the second half of the year, though).

As you may have noticed, Microsoft just showed Windows Phone 8.1 off at the firm's Build conference, and it does seem to be making good headway with the operating system. There are some great new features which we go over in our hands-on with the OS, and you might also want to check out our feature which compares Windows Phone 8.1 to Android KitKat, blow-by-blow.